Calendar
At noon Laura Wells, candidate for California State Controller, endorsed by the Green Party of California, will speak on the issue of public banking. She will be followed by comments on recent happenings around the possibility of Post Office banking and financial services, updates on where things stand with the (possibly imminent) sale of the Berkeley Post Office, the campaign against the outsourcing of Post Office jobs to Staples, music, letter-writing and more.
The first item in Wells’ platform is
Implement a Publicly-Owned State Bank for California
Determine the best option or options for a successful implementation of a State Bank, and get started on it. Day one.
Come eat at the Farmer’s Market a block away, join us, get caught up, and enjoy a beautiful Spring day in Berkeley.
Music by one or more of Hali Hammer, Dave Welsh, Fresh Juice Party, Fat Luv, and Mountain Fire.
Other updates about efforts to save our Post Office:
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~ March 11 hearing with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.
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~ Status of the proposed Zoning Overlay Ordinance.
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~ Protests at Staples Stores, ongoing.
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~ Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s proposed moratorium on selling historic Post Offices.
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~ Legal actions, and invoices outstanding. Plans for a lawsuit. ~ Bring your lunch.
Gather at 2pm, then we will take to the streets at 3pm. Bring your body down. Bring a friend or a hundred. We will march to honor Alex Nieto and all the countless many black and brown young men murdered by those thugs in uniform. We will march for our friends and families getting kicked out of their homes. We will march to stand up and fight back against the takeover of our communities by the forces of capital and their human agents who have too much money for how little heart they possess.
Stand up and be counted.
A revisit to Macy’s to thank them for their support of the inhumane sit/lie ‘law’
which criminalizes our homeless sisters and brothers
– we have the signs, cardboard & sharpies, bring yourself / friends / family & sit for your human & civil right to sit down –
On Sunday, March 30, 6:00PM @ the Sudo Room (2141 Broadway Ave. Entrance on 22nd St.) We will be having a meeting to prepare for the Earth Day to May Day Direct Action Assembly.
The Postal Service has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!
The Postal Service has started to outsource Post Office services to Staples, replacing union jobs with low-paying, low benefit work.
And we’re fighting against both!
Come help us plan our next steps.
The American Postal Workers Union is planning more actions against Staples; we need to support them. We’ve started a “Don’t Shop at Staples” campaign with some awesome… what else? … postcards to send to Staples management! Here’s the front of the postcard.
The Berkeley City Council is on a path to pass some sort of Zoning Overlay which may protect the Post Office against various commercial uses, or be totally ineffective. We need to stay on top of it.
And we need to be prepared if the Post Office announces a sale! The Office of Inspector General’s report on the sale of Post Offices is supposed to come out before the end of March – anything could happen after it comes out.
Encouraging articles have come out recently about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked. We will be holding a forum on postal and public banking on March 29th on the Post Office steps. Come help us plan it!
THINGS ARE HAPPENING!
Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!
OccupyForum presents�
Fukushima:
Facts and Fiction
During the three long and frightening years since the triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi, the world has heard less and less about this manmade industrial disaster. Money, power, and engineering hubris were put ahead of the lives and health of the people of Japan and the northern hemisphere as radiation releases continue to leave the site and migrate into the environment. Decommissioning and dismantling the reactors will take decades, and complete cleanup is not even possible.
Ralph Nader calls nuclear power and the radioactivity it produces �violent, unnecessary, unsafe, and uninsurable� undemocratic.� And constructing new words that begin with �un,� it is also �unevacuate-able, unfinance-able, unregulatable.�
Naoto Kan, prime minister of Japan when the disaster began states: Without nuclear power plants we can absolutely provide the energy to meet our demands. Since Fukushima began, Japan has tripled its use of solar energy a jump in solar power production that is the equivalent of the electricity that would be produced by three nuclear plants Germany is a model in its commitment to shutting down all its nuclear power plants with all its power supplied by renewable power by 2050. The entire world could do this if humanity really would work together we could generate all our energy through renewable energy.
OccupyForum brings together a panel to discuss Fukushima and the alternatives to fossil fuel and nuclear power. Josh Wolf, moderator, is a journalist who spent a year in prison for refusing to turn over videos of a 2011 demonstration to police. Umi Hagitani from No Nukes Action is a journalist and anti-nuke activist from Japan, and a key organizer in Japan and the United States. Paul Kangas (Solar One) is a journalist, veteran (Bay of Pigs), private investigator and doctor who has been an activist for solar power and against atomic energy since 1963. In May, Paul is making a film in France and Germany on the growth of solar in Europe to be released in January of 2015. Paul will be discussing the inevitability of solar�s displacement of fossil fuel.
Bloggspot/paul kangas, Youtube: paul8kangas
Time will be allocated for Q&A and announcements.
Donations welcome, no one turned away!
A SLIVER OF LIGHT: THREE AMERICANS IMPRISONED IN IRAN
Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal, and Sarah Shourd
With Chanan Tigay, Assistant Professor of Creative Writing, San Francisco State University
In summer 2009, UC–Berkeley grads Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal and Sarah Shourd were hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan when they unknowingly crossed into Iran and were captured by border patrol. Accused of espionage, the three Americans ultimately found themselves in Tehran’s infamous Evin Prison, where they discovered that pooling their strength of will and relying on each other were the only ways they could survive. They share their story of hardship and hope, which is detailed in their new memoir A Sliver of Light: Three Americans Imprisoned in Iran.
April 2-3, 2014
Wednesday, April 2 Schedule:
8:00 AM – American Federation of Teachers Hosts Breakfast
8:00 to 10:00 – First Picket Line Shift!
(Rhetoric, Film, Music, EECS, Latin American Studies)
10:00 to 12:00 – Second Picket Line Shift!
(Comp. Lit, Classics, Education, French, Philosophy)
12:00 to 1:30 – MASS RALLY ON SPROUL
1:30 – AFSCME HOSTS LUNCH
1:30 to 3:30 – Third Picket Line Shift!
(City planning, Public Health, Sociology, History, Geography, English)
3:30 to 5:30 – Fourth Picket Line Shift!
(Political Science, Social Welfare, Anthropology)
**PICKET LINES LOCATED AT BANCROFT AND TELEGRAPH**
Join Eviction Free San Francisco for a spirited lunchtime march and picket at Vanguard Properties to demand that Michael Harrison of Vanguard Properties rescind the Ellis Act eviction of Benito Santiago!
Meet at 24th street BART station and march to Vanguard Properties at 2501 Mission Street at 21st.
Co-founder of Vanguard Properties Michael Harrison is currently using the Ellis Act to attempt and evict long-term tenant and native San Franciscan Benito Santiago.
Benito Santiago is a senior and disabled Filipino resident of the Duboce Triangle. He was born and raised in San Francisco. Benito is a teacher for the San Francisco unified school district where he teaches dance to children. He received his first eviction notice the day before Thanksgiving, on November 24th 2013. Benito has been organizing with Eviction Free San Francisco to fight his eviction.
Michael Harrison is a “property flipper”: his shell company Pineapple Boy LLC bought Benito’s home in November 2013 and tried to evict Benito and the two other tenants immediately. Vanguard Properties is currently involved in a number of luxury property developments in the Mission District including the development at 19th and Valencia that in February 2014 set record sale prices for the neighborhood with a 2 bedroom rental apartment going for $10,500 /month.
Endorsed by Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, Our Mission NO Eviction, San Francisco Senior and Disability Action, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), San Francisco Tenants Union, POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE, Mission SRO Collaborative, Bill Sorro Housing Program (BiSHoP), Tenants Together, Manilatown Heritage Foundation, Causa Justa Just Cause, Gray Panthers, New York City Anti- Eviction Network
April 2-3, 2014
Thursday, April 3 Schedule:
8:00 AM – American Federation of Teachers Hosts Breakfast
8:00 to 10:00 – First Picket Line Shift!
(Art History, Social Welfare, City planning, Public Health, Rhetoric)
10:00 to 12:00 – TEACH-IN on SPROUL
12:00 to 2:00 – Second Picket Line Shift!
(Education, Sociology, Economics, Student Learning Center)
2:00 to 4:00 – TRAVELLING PICKET LINE
(All departments come!)
4:00 to 6:00 – Third Picket Line Shift!
(Latin American Studies, Film, Music, Philosophy)
**PICKET LINES LOCATED AT BANCROFT AND TELEGRAPH**
Or next class will be discussing Michael Hudson’s The Bubble and Beyond ch.9 – ‘Junk Bonding Industry.’
We will also be taking a look at the Public Banking Workbook ch 1-3 to further understand Public Banking and what it can provide.
Here are the readings.
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Emergency Picket Line needed TOMORROW Thursday April 3rd 6 AM Campell Hall UC Berkeley!
- Tomorrow there will be a militant picket line in solidarity with UC Santa Cruz UAW that were attacked and arrested. Police used tasers while forcefully opening the west entrance to campus. http://www.ksbw.com/news/planned-2day-strike-is-underway-at-uc-santa-cruz-this-morning/25282900
- Picket at the Campbell hall construction site on UC Berkeley where union workers won’t cross @ 6:00 am sharp. We need about 30 to 50 people so please forward to as many people as possible!
President Obama is now the “Deporter-in-Chief.” He has deported 2 million people and counting — our loved ones, friends and neighbors.
We will highlight the stories of families and workers who have been affected by the deportation machine, e-verify and I–9 Audits!
Obama End the Deportations! Legalization and Worker Rights for All!
In April 2014 we will have reached record deportations under the Obama administration — which are anticipated to soon hit the tragic milestone of two million removals since he took office. Our community has stood up to denounce the deportations and separation of families, and for a fast track to legalization. As part of the national #Not1more Deportation campaign, the San Francisco Bay Coalition for Immigrant Justice will hold a rally on Friday, April 4, just ahead of a national day of action planned for Saturday, April 5.
Our demands? Obama: STOP all deportations, legalization for all!
Join us in demanding #NotOneMore #Legalization4all #workersrighst4all
Causa Justa :: Just Cause
Come hang out with us at First Friday! We’ll be somewhere near the Alan Blueford Center 4 Justice between 24th and 25th streets on Telegraph. We’ll have literature, a slide show, maybe a movie and people to tell you all about the DAC and Stingray, OPD’s latest gadget to spy on everyone in Oakland.
Everyone is invited to a Cal Berkeley event on Spoken Word /Prison Stories:
All Of Us Our None will have a full hour to talk with and engage the audience by sharing their personal stories, organizational campaigns, and victories. The goal of this event is to build relationships with other formerly-incarcerated students, others students, and explore ways that educational institutions, such as CAL, can help empower/ be in solidarity with formerly incarcerated people.
The Alan Blueford Center For Justice is gonna be open for 1st Friday on April 4th, 2014….Fresh Juice Party is gonna be our special guests performing their original blend of justice beats….and because we love The People of Oakland, the show is FREE!!! Come on by 2434 Telegraph Ave & help us celebrate Alan Blueford‘s life, AND DON’T FORGET, YOU CAN GET YOUR #EndPoliceTerror STICKER!
**DOOR OPENS AT 8PM FOR THE SHOW, BUT #ENDPOLICETERROR STICKERS & OTHER INFO WILL BE AVAILABLE STARTING AT 5PM**
Come to find others taking action…
Meet other tenants fighting displacement…
Resist the proliferation of surveillance…
Combat racist development…
Come to plan actions with others.
In Honor of Lil Bobby Hutton
“SPEAKING UP AGAINST VIOLENCE”
Come enjoy FREE BBQ w Music, Family Entertainment & Speakers
Every year the Black Panthers commemorate their fallen warriors. It’s held on behalf of Bobby Hutton, “Lil” Bobby was murdered by OPD prior to him having an event at Defremery park, which involved Feeding The People. We as community members in 2012 organized a Take Back the Town BBQ at what is known today as “Lil” Bobby Hutton park.
The theme of the event is “SPEAKING UP AGAINST VIOLENCE”, not just police brutality but all forms of violence. There will be a wide range of speakers, food, music and kid entertainment.
Speakers from Criticial Resistance, Oakland Privacy Working Group, Justice 4 Alan Blueford. Also speaking: Dan Siegel, Elaine Brown.
Community Medics will give instruction on binding wounds.